


a dream of spring

by Magali_Dragon



Series: one shots and other drabbles [24]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Romance, Day 5: Classical AU, Drabble, F/M, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Jonerys Week, Jonerys Week 2020, but kind of more Demeter and Persephone, purposefully vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25476763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magali_Dragon/pseuds/Magali_Dragon
Summary: Once a year Daenerys says goodbye to Jon, and winter comes, for there is a cost to Jon's resurrection.Or, a twist on the classic Hades and Persephone myth.For Jonerys Week 2020/Dream of Spring, Day 5: Classical AU
Relationships: Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen
Series: one shots and other drabbles [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567705
Comments: 52
Kudos: 271





	a dream of spring

**Author's Note:**

> This is vague on purpose. It’s sort of Hades and Persephone but can also be more Demeter and Persephone. If you aren't familiar, Hades takes Persephone (daughter of Demeter) as his wife to the Underworld. Depending on the version of the myth, Demeter's despair at her daughter's absence for half the year causes winter and the crops to die, or Persephone's absence and missing her mother causes the winter. Either way, it's the reason for the seasons-- Persephone in the Underworld brings wintertime, her return brings about spring and rejuvenation.

  
_you showed me_

_how a love like ours can turn_

_even the darkest, coldest realm_

_into the happiest of homes._

_-_ Nikita Gill, “Persephone to Hades”

* * *

It would be soon, she realizes. She knows these things now, they are part of her, a sense she never knew she could have, as natural as breathing. The morning it happens, it is cold and dreary, rain never quite stopping but never quite starting either; a mist thick, heavy in the cold air. It sinks to her bones and makes every action difficult. Her movements are clumsy, stiff, and painful. She dreads this time every year, she does not wish to climb from the bed, does not wish to start her day, and does not wish to face the inevitable. If she can stay here, she can delay it, if she tries to push time, maybe it will not come. Except it will not.

It will happen soon.

The furs do little to warm her, courtesy of the shift in the weather and the tides. The unnatural chill lurking in the dim chambers. The cold is cold, but this...this is something else entirely. It does not belong there, it does not want to be there. She usually feels warm, sometimes too warm, but even her dragon blood cannot heat her now. It will do nothing to fight what creeps between them. It cannot heat him, cannot make his heart beat or his blood pulse.

It cannot warm the dead.

She closes her eyes, willing herself to sleep, to fall into dreams where she does not have to face this. The inevitable parting, the split of her heart into two, and the months of loneliness to follow. Without half her heart, how does it still beat, she wonders. It does not fill her with strength, her life nothing but a half-life, gray and faded. Colors no longer exist, flowers do not bloom, and even the sun does not shine. It will grow colder still, the snows will come, and freeze the ground. There will be little life and little joy in anything.

The body beside hers shifts; the chill wafts over her. It bleeds from him, as does his life. She shivers, turns her face in her pillow, to peer to him, watching out of the corner of her eye. The differences are there; she can see them better now. The waxy pallor of his skin, cheeks sunken and the bones standing out in sharp contrast, and his eyes deep and pale. His curls no longer seem to coil, lank and heavy against his head. His bones jut out now, his collarbone a jagged blade, and fingers appear frail, as though one squeeze might break them.

The milky pale of his skin, which used to be flushed pink, is now an ugly gray, the color of the ashes leftover in the hearth, and it stretches over his chest. His ribs are visible, one after another, like a strange instrument, spanning his sides before jutting down to his hips, the furs draped over them, pelvic bones arching out, the muscles cording with the slightest movement, pulling taut. They are not really muscles though, just bits of tissue, dead and holding everything else together. She stares at him, the final confirmation she requires that it is time, and her fingers move on their own, to touch the lowest gash in his skin.

Seven in all, each one more horrifying than the last. She traces a warm fingertip over the smallest, just above his hip, then the next one, and the next. There are two that are almost parallel to each other, over his belly, where beneath his stomach rests-- now he will no longer eat, she knows. He's been picking at food increasingly often, every meal less and less, but now he will not eat at all. She touches the one above, horizontal, just under his right pectoral muscle. The sixth one. 

And then the seventh, the final one, the kill shot.

The one that took her from him before she even knew of him, before she even realizes she cannot live without him, not wholly. Not in any sort of full sense, where the sun shines daily, where her heart beats in tandem with his, and her blood rushes warm and red under her skin, her smile wide and open, face beaming. A full life, a happy life, a life of joy and love and family.

A life she always wanted, but because of who she is, because of her history and her blood and her family, a life she can never really have. Sacrifices to make, because only death must pay for life, and if she wants to live, she must give up as well. The gods give and the gods take, the gods demand sacrifices, he says to her, and he is a sacrifice. She believes in no gods, in only herself, but there is proof in some. The light returned him to her, yet the darkness requires him to return to it.

She touches the scar; it gapes open in his chest. She expects to see blood pouring from it, pooling under him onto the crisp white linens beneath them. Red as warm and bright as the fire that gave him life, as the fire that gave her life too. She runs her hand over it, from top to bottom, curved, sickle-shaped, not only a stab, but a turn of the knife, a twist of the wrist, its sole purpose not only to injure, to incapacitate, but to kill. To end.

He touches her hand now, fingertips light over the top, and they are cold. They chill her to her core. The heat within her can only fade from his touch, from his absence. He lies beside her now and yet he is not there. She closes her eyes to stem the tears, but she cannot stop them, as they are as inevitable as his departure.

"It goes so fast," she sobs, moving to him. She prays to the gods she does not believe in, to the gods she curses, and wishes her tears can bring him back to her. They trickle into his scar, the black, purplish bruises around it only darkening; mocking her.

Words never are his forte, he has so little of them anyway, and now they hardly come, his lips a thin pale pink. He moves towards her, reaching for her, and she shivers, so cold now. "I love you," he rasps. He sometimes struggles to speak. Words are wind, words are ash, and they evaporate into the air.

"I love you," she tells him. She can repeat it, can only say it, but it does nothing. The gods do not care of her love for him. They demand his return. If she wants him, she must let him go.

They come together, but it is painful and heartbreaking, and feels his tears on her face, mingling with hers. They are cold, like flecks of ice, and she shivers around him, clutching him. The sky darkens, the winds howl, and the sea rages. Unsettled and angry. The gods are warning her.

"I do not have much time," he says, later that day, standing in an archway, toes of his boots just a hair's breadth from the edge. One gust of wind, one nudge, and he can fall to his death. To his permanent forever death.

But does he die? She cannot be sure. can you kill someone who is already dead?

They stay together, for as long as possible, entwined in each other's arms. Neither acknowledges the pervasive cold, the way the floor frosts over, and the increasing gray of skin, darkening of the scars, and the quiet of his heart. Her ear presses so hard against it, begging to hear something. It is mute, hardly beating.

The ship prepares to depart.

No one says anything to them. All her advisers know this is the time of year where they will get nothing from her. They worry sometimes, every year, what will happen when the ship leaves. When she stands on the cliffs, the screaming anguish filling the air; what will happen now? Will she finally throw herself over the edge, to be with him permanently? Will she demand the same from the Red Woman who watches them carefully, to make sure they follow through with what the Lord demands of them?

Or will she mount her great beast, take to the swirling skies, and destroy and conquer, to try to fill the gaping hole in her heart?

She does no such thing. They think her mad sometimes, muttering under their breath, no doubt worrying what must be done should she finally succumb to what they think lurks in her blood. They are the mad fools. They do not understand what she does or why. They will never know the love she feels. It sustains her. She is strong, not weak. She is fire, not ice.

They kiss, one final goodbye, for a time. "I will see you on the other side," he whispers.

"I love you," she tells him again. It is all she has, her love. It is all he can take with him, when he leaves her. He lives off of it, the only thing he can use to keep going. Her love is the only thing that is just his, no one else's. As his is the only thing she has too.

"My queen," he promises to her, and kisses her one final time. They let go; he goes to the ship, furs drowning him. He stands there at the back, and she watches him leave. Until the ship is but a speck on the horizon. Sometimes after these moments, she takes to the skies, so she can be one with the elements that took him from her. The screams of her children remind her of what must be done. Without death they would not be here with her. She understands. She does not have to like it, but she understands it.

The weather worsens, as it always does. Storms batter the coastline, destroy crops, and homes, and send ships to watery graves. Unnatural cold, which once before could last years, now only lasts a short time, but it is still too much for some and she spends the majority of her time working to ensure her people are fed, warm, and cared for during these months. She wonders if the state of the realm is a direct result of her emotions, her sadness and pain. The gaping hole in her heart from his absence. The throbbing of her empty womb, every year he leaves, reminding her there is nothing else to fill her soul.

During these months she also tries to live in memories. She stares in front of the hearth, gripping the arms of her chair, and blanks out to another time. To when they laughed and flirted with danger. To when they flew through the clouds, skimming the seas and tumbling off their mounts into the grass. To when they made love in the sun, their bodies warming the earth beneath them.

"You must eat," her advisers tell her. The dwarf, the half-fingered man, the scribe, and the soldier. Every one of them tries. Once and awhile she listens to them. Her closest friend sits with her when it gets bad, when she sobs into her shoulder, no longer a queen, but a broken-hearted woman.

"He will return, focus on that my Queen, he will return to you."

And return he does.

She can feel it one morning when she wakes. Her heart beats faster, her blood runs warmer, and she looks to see the sun peeking from beyond the darkness. "He's coming," she whispers. She goes to her sons, crying in happiness, and flies away, laughing and hugging the hot scales beneath her. "He's coming back to me."

His mount cheers, screaming happiness when he senses him near. They fly every morning, searching the seas, until finally on a lovely warm day, not a cloud in the sky, and the sun burning fire on them, she sees the ship. She sobs and lands on her cliff and runs for the dock. Her skirts are lighter now, owing to the temperature, and her cheeks flushed pink. Her hair tumbles down her back and flows with the light breeze, as she runs as fast as her feet can carry her.

The sailors are unloading crates and trunks, but she pays no attention to the items they bring her, looking for him, and she sees him. The white wolf emerges first, eyes burning red rubies, and he trots to greet her. She buries her face to his fur, grateful for his return, but she cannot wait and looks up and there he is.

Raven curls thick around his face, curls coiled and kinked, his fur cloak thinner and lighter. His chest is filled out, the muscles strong and lean. The scars on his face are barely noticeable, faint marks of the trials he's endured to be with her. He walks down the plank to her. His face is full, cheeks ruddy, and skin no longer sickly pale but milky, the color of marble.

"Jon!" she cries.

He lifts her from her feet, spinning around, and smile wide over his shining teeth. His eyes crinkle in the corners and she touches his beard, no longer scratchy and thorny, but smooth and soft. His lips are full, plump and pink, and he uses them to kiss her, and her toes curl in her boots. She grips him with strength she only knows this time of year, her tears warm against his, like a fresh rain.

"I love you," he says first, as he always does, and he kisses her again. They spin once more. He lifts her off her feet again and cradles her close. "My queen."

She strokes his face, her heart thudding in her chest. They go to the castle, ignoring the advisers, and for the first time in months, she holds him to her body and loves him thoroughly, unable to stop touching and stroking his body, as it moves over and under hers. His bones are hidden beneath hard muscle and warm skin, flushing with the heat from hers, and dampening with sweat. Their fingers clench together, so tight she worries he might break hers. Her blood rushes in her ears and she touches her cheek to his heart and falls asleep to the swish and thud of it, in tandem with hers.

The scars are faded, barely visible, the tiniest lines now. She touches them once or twice, to savor how they are just faint reminders of the horror he endured. They will stay that way now for months. Months where she will be light, free, and happy. The love she feels for him sustains her. Sustains them both. In those darkest of days, she knows they will be here. Wrapped in each other, hearts beating, full and warm, and satiated.

Maybe this time her womb will quicken, she hopes. His hand falls over it, wide and flat, and she swears this time she feels the heat inside of her. "Maybe this time, "she whispers, unable to stop the little jolt at the notion. Maybe this time, with the sun and the heat and the cool waves, the bursting of flowers from the soft ground, and the explosion of colors, vibrant and warm, that comes with his return, she may also blossom too. 

Even he thinks the same. He always does. Nothing can stop them now. Not when they are together. "Maybe," he says. He strokes her face, smiling. He is young again, handsome and whole. "I missed you."

"I missed you more."

They embrace. A dragon roars. A wolf howls.

For the next six months they will rule as one, until he must return to the North, and she is alone once more. But for now, she does not think of that inevitable day, because he is whole and alive, and so is she.


End file.
